Donald Trump is drawing back from the hardline position on immigration that brought him lots of primary voters. He now says that he is open to “softening” immigration laws, expressing sympathy for immigrants who have been here for over a decade. His earlier statement that he would deport all illegal immigrants seems to be off the table.

His “exact” immigration policy will be released possibly next week, but what has come out so far makes him sound like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz, all of whom he pilloried on this issue. See this response from the Cruz camp.

Do you think this is a sign of Trump’s growing realism, compassion, and “becoming presidential,” or is it a betrayal of his earlier voters? Is this a welcome moderation from his earlier extremism, or does it show that Trump is just another politician after all? Would a shift on immigration make you more or less willing to vote for him? [Read more…]

President Obama has issued an executive order protecting some 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.

On what authority, you may ask? He is invoking the principle of “prosecutor discretion,” under which a law enforcement officer may choose, for example, which speeders to chase down. So here the Executive Branch, charged with carrying out the laws passed by the Legislative Branch, is just choosing not to enforce the law against illegal immigrants unless they have committed other crimes. (But in forbidding immigration officials from enforcing the law, isn’t he taking away their “prosecutor discretion”?) [Read more…]

President Obama, having been unable to get his way in Congress and now faced with a Republican majority in both houses, is reportedly preparing to impose immigration reform by executive fiat. granting amnesty to millions of people who are here illegally. [Read more…]

President Obama had said that since Congress won’t pass immigration reform, he will push it through using executive action. Though he had said he would do so by the end of the summer, he has decided to wait until after the midterm elections in November. He and other Democrats are worried that if he grants some kind of amnesty to illegal immigrants, which he is apparently planning to do, the public outcry would be so great that it would hurt Democrats in the elections.

But if they think the American people are going to react that way, why are they still going to do it? And do they really think the public is so stupid that voters who would be up in arms over this issue would vote for Democrats, knowing their post-election plans? And if the President is doing this in the name of a noble principle, why doesn’t he just do it, instead of playing politics with the issue? Isn’t this an embarrassingly cynical political game? Interestingly, now even immigration activists feel betrayed.[Read more…]

In a discussion of the struggling Immigration Reform Bill, George Will tells about the Compromise of 1850. Henry Clay worked it out, but the bill that would implement it–dealing with scores of inter-related issues, such as limiting the spread of slavery, statehood for California, the mode of territorial government for Utah, what to do about fugitive slaves, and on and on–could never get passed. It was up to Stephen Douglas, better known as Lincoln’s nemesis, to get the legislation through. He broke the gargantuan bill apart into smaller bills, each of which found its own constituency, and each of which passed.

Mr. Wills says that part of the problem in our paralyzed government is that bills are just too long. They try to cover everything. Which is a symptom of a government that thinks it knows everything. [Read more…]